Milestones: Mar. 18, 1985

DIED. Iosif Shklovskii, 68, maverick Soviet astrophysicist and radio astronomer who made basic discoveries about neutron stars, quasars and novas (exploding stars), and also led the Soviets’ search for extraterrestrial intelligence; of undisclosed causes; in Moscow. In the mid-1960s he posited that some intense radio emissions came from advanced alien civilizations, but they proved to be from quasars. Shklovskii’s 1966 collaborative book with U.S. Astronomer Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, is still considered the basic treatise on the prospects for life beyond earth.